I thought it was love

 

I am a vivid dreamer. I remember my dreams as if they are actual experiences. Being part of a Jungian dream group for over ten years encouraged this, of course, but it also taught me to look for what could be behind the dream. The setting, the characters, everything in the dream comes through the focus of my being. I am director, producer, star and cast.

Imagine living in the 1840's duplex house my ex-husband grew up in. In this dream it is now an apartment with distinctive white woodwork and comfortable rooms. Downstairs are other apartments, but only in the dream, not in real life, that I can get to by going around the outside of the house and down some steps. I go down there to visit a friend and a woman from the apartment under mine comes out to call to me. She invites me in for a cup of tea in such a friendly, insistent way that I cannot say no.

The house in this dream comes from a time of innocence and gullibility. The idea of a basement in a dream often portrays working through inner feelings, or betrayals of the past. In this dream the woman was incredibly friendly, likable, personable, outgoing, and single minded. She kept me placated by appearing to do what she said she would, make tea, while manipulating me completely.

I was aware of her manipulation, but also so inundated by her words and actions that it was hard to focus on anything else. She showed me extraordinary things, antique bookcases filled with ancient books, elegant antique woodwork and a rounded snowwhite door painted bright red over rough wood. Through that door was a room filled with exotic treasures, including a gilded cage with a hummingbird in it. 

She took the humming bird out and placed it in my hands and I was overwhelmed by awe and joy, quickly followed by confusion and fear as it appeared to morph back and forth from hummingbird to a black frog like creature with red diamonds on its back! I kept asking her why this was happening and she ignored me as if she neither heard me, nor saw it happen. Now I was very uneasy and she deftly maneuvered me out of that room and back into the bedroom where I noticed how much larger her apartment was than mine. How could that be when they were built on top of each other? Again she acted like there was nothing wrong.

Her four year old daughter drifted in and out of the picture and her young boyfriend appeared at the door. They both made the apartment seem much more modern and normal, but by now I was feeling very intimidated and trapped. I wanted out before it was too late! Too late for what I don't know.

I did get out, but once outside I could not find the entrance to my own apartment. Everything had changed. I knew this made no sense and by sheer force of will I found it and went inside only to find the woman sitting on my couch waiting for me. I was terrified and nearly hysterical. I drove her out.

I think this dream is remembering the times in my life when I have been gracefully and brutally manipulated by talented, narcissistic brilliant people who have had a single minded desire to get what they want at any cost. There have been at least two and possible more on a smaller scale. They used the things I admired and loved to pull me in and allowed me to think it was love.